Planning uncertainty triggered by proposed Mayoral Development Corporation could be damaging, GLA committee told
Sadiq Khan’s dramatic plans to pedestrianise Oxford Street have been backed by Camden’s council leader at a Greater London Authority committee, despite warnings from another witness about the scheme’s potential impact on investment.
The mayor of London released his proposals for the redevelopment of the area last September and, at the end of February, published a consultation on creating a Mayoral Development Corporation to deliver the plan.
Khan is seeking responsibility for plan-making and the determination of planning applications across the area around Oxford Street, the vast majority of which lies in Westminster, with a small part of Camden also included.
The council leader for the latter borough, Cllr Richard Olszewski, told a London Assembly planning and regeneration committee earlier this week that he and his peers at the council “welcome the proposals which could transform the area and the wider West End by increasing visitors, improving air quality, creating more jobs and supporting businesses to thrive”.
He added that Camden was “also seeking to form a partnership and set agreements with the Mayor” to ensure local residents could “play an active and full part in its future”.
> Also read: New project team to be appointed on Khan’s £150m Oxford Street plans
However, the committee meeting also saw the plans subjected to strong criticism from Tim Lord, chair of The Soho Society and the Westminster Amenity Societies Forum, both organisations representing the area around Oxford Street and the West End.
Lord said that Khan’s September announcement had been “a tragic mistake” because there had been consensus around an existing scheme for the redevelopment of the area.
Urban design practice Publica had previously been working on a £90m plan for the street proposed by Westminster council, which had blocked a previous attempt at pedestrianisation in 2018 due to concerns over the need to reroute traffic into quieter surrounding streets.
”All of that work has now been lost and wasted because of a press release from the mayor in September saying that he might consider pedestrianization that then triggered all the businesses to pull their funding from that scheme, and the residents are, I would say, pretty disappointed,” said Lord.
“We now have a whole debate about what will happen to all of planning in the mayoral development area.
“I think all of the property developers will wait till the end of that debate before they make any more investments, because the planning rules might change.
“We might have a different planning policy for the mayoral development area than we do for the rest of Westminster.”
The consultation on the creation of a Mayoral Development Corporation will continue until 2 May 2025.
As well as planning powers, the proposals would see the GLA take responsibility for the road itself and retain the nieghbourhood portion of the Community Infrastructure Levy for developments within the designated area.
The MDC would be controlled by a board of up to 13 members including an independent chair appointed by the Mayor and representatives from each of the two councils.
The London Assembly has the power to veto the designation of a Mayoral Development Area with a two-thirds majority vote, although this would require some of the mayor’s own party to support the veto.
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